causal

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin causālis (“relating to a cause”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from causa (“cause, reason”), the source of cause, and the suffix -ālis.^[3][6][7] The OED, revising the entry in 2025, takes the noun from noun uses of the post-classical Latin adjective, for a causal conjunction and, in the neuter causāle, for a cause, and the adjective partly also borrowed from Middle French causal, recorded in French from 1404 and in Old French once in the 13th century as causel.^[7] It compares Italian causale.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A noun, "a cause, a causal agent": before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus.^[7] The Oxford Dictionary of English dates the word to late Middle English, as a noun for a causal conjunction or particle.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The adjective, "acting as a cause", follows in the early 15th century, in Lydgate.^[7] Its use in grammar and logic, of a word or proposition that expresses a cause, is recorded from about 1450,^[7] although Etymonline and the Shorter Oxford date it to the 16th century.^[2][4] The wider sense "relating to a cause or causes" appears from 1569,^[7][2] and "of the nature of cause and effect" from 1614.^[7] Johnson (1755) defined it as "relating to causes; implying or containing causes", with a quotation from Glanvill's Scepsis Scientifica.^[8] In philosophy it now also describes theories that explain things in terms of causal relations.^[9]

Timeline

• before 1398 – noun, a cause or causal agent.^[7]
• before 1425 – adjective, being or acting as a cause.^[7]
• c. 1450 – grammar and logic, expressing causation.^[7] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1530s.^[2]
• 1530 – noun, a word or particle that expresses causation.^[7]
• 1569 – of or relating to a cause or causation.^[7][2]
• 1614 – of the nature of cause and effect.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Being or acting as a cause: the causal factor in the outbreak.^[9][3][7]
2. Involving or relating to cause and effect: a causal link between diet and illness.^[9][3][7]
3. (grammar, logic) Expressing a cause or reason: "Since" can be a causal conjunction.^[3][7][9]
4. (philosophy) Of a theory: explaining something in terms of causal relations.^[9]

Noun

1. (grammar) A word or form that expresses a cause.^[3][7]

Word family

• causally
• acausal
• noncausal
• uncausal

Related words

• cause
• causality
• causation
• causative

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins